*** UPDATE: Release date is Jan 20th, 2010! Get your FREE copy tomorrow! *** *** UPDATE: Here's the gameplay video **** ***** Last Thursday afternoon, we had this crazy idea to try to build an iPhone game over the course of a 3 day weekend. We had all the ingredients in place: 1) Simple but fun and addictive gameplay concept - CHECK 2) A simple art style that won’t require outside help - CHECK 3) A hard deadline of Monday due to client work commitments - CHECK And last but not least: 4) Awesome significant others that will put up with this hijacked weekend - CHECK The reason this is Zero to BETA instead of Zero to Release is that we didn’t quite fully finish. We have a feature complete game but the gameplay still needs more testing and some tweaking before we’re OK with submitting it. Also, the reason it’s 36 hrs and not 72 hrs is because we are old and we like to sleep. That and we needed to be bright eyed and bushy tailed for today as we had some important client work to start. Ok, enough with the disclaimers, I’m proud to announce the results of our Weekend GameJam: Introducing BANKSHOT, a simple physics game where the goal is to score goals using bank shots. It’s a ’streak’ based game where the score is simply the number of goals you can score in a row. A valid bankshot is 1 to 3 banks. We limited it to 3 so we could reduce the wild lucky shots factor. Features: - physics! - OpenFeint! - bankshots! We will be releasing this game for FREE (ad-supported) once it’s been submitted and approved. We’ll also keep you informed as to the App Store performance of this app via our blog. Here are some initial screenshots, I’ll be posting a video once we’ve finished our gameplay tweaks (hopefully tonight): We'll be posting a video soon! Overall this Weekend GameJam was a blast! I highly recommend other devs to try it, it really helps you hyperfocus and get a lot of stuff done quickly. We're going to be posting App Store metrics as soon as we launch this puppy. You can keep track of it on our blog: http://blog.endloop.ca We’re definitely into doing it again the next time we have a simple game concept. We’d love to hear your thoughts and comments! Cheers, Ken Seto http://www.endloop.ca
I hate this fad so much! project 72, super ramen BROTHers, bankshot.... what is the obsession with putting out unpolished games and hope that your marketing stunt helps them sell?
I don't know about those other projects but ours will NOT be unpolished. 70% of the time spent this weekend was on playtesting and gameplay tweaking. We're not finished playtesting and tweaking yet. It's still in BETA so we're hoping to finish and submit by the end of the week. We also realize it's a simple game (but hopefully fun + addictive) so we're giving it for FREE. Thanks, Ken
well I can believe you more 'cause your game is a more simple game unlike the others (3d/spaceship thing). I actually think games like doodle jump are made in a matter of days (correct me if Im wrong) because they're simple enough. main problem with project 72 was lack of realistic collision and the black hole isn't very convincing (no gravity or animation). and super ramen BROTHers was just really well..... bad.
Thanks, it's just the two of us so our resources were a bit limited hehe. We did this just to see how far we could get in a limited timeframe. Like I said above, we only worked 12 hr days (instead of around the clock) because we're old and we like our sleep.
How can you call project 72 unpolished? It's way better looking and way more fun than 90% of the apps i downloaded. I got a AdHoc version and i enjoyed it a lot. I do not hope they sell a lot of copies just because of their stunts, i hope they sell a lot cause they actually delivered a fun game.
To clarify, I didn't call Project 72 unpolished. I merely stated that our game wasn't going to be unpolished in response to Motitas's comment. We're still trying to polish our gameplay mechanics actually. Our physics are sound and it plays like we planned but I'm not happy yet with the end to end gameplay experience.
Heeey guys! As one of the founders of Project 72, I find this amazing and wish you the best of luck! Isn't it great doing it as a personal challenge and in hope to inspire other developers?! I'm sorry some feel we create unpolished games. That is certainly not the case and it's definitely not in many developer's interest to create bad apps. /Rasmus http://www.dogtownstudios.com
Thanks! We appreciate the support, I saw the Project 72 video and was quite jealous that your team could accomplish so much in 72 hrs! Congrats to you guys on an amazing job! I think all devs should try this at least once. My brother Garry participated in the 360iDev GameJam and he was totally inspired by that experience. -Ken
I think it would be cool experience to do something like this, just from extreme programming point of view, but I also hope this will not become some sort of new paradigm that it's better to develop a games for App store in 24 hours. On the other hand, if it only costs $0.99 to buy, you get what you paid for..
Hey folks, I just added our gameplay video to our original post. Here it is again: It's been submitted! We're planning on adding more stuff while we wait for it to get approved. Thanks, Ken
Just a quick note to let you guys know that BANKSHOT will be available in the App Store as of tomorrow (Jan 20th, 2010). Remember, it's FREE so enjoy! -Ken
iTunes Link : http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bankshot/id349424934?mt=8 TA thread : http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=41999
